Anyway to specify intensity/color for DMD text?

[madmrmax]

In FP's DMD, I can specify primitives using intensity levels, but how can I specify intensity levels for text? In Theatre of Magic the same font might render in 2 or 3 intensities in different scenarios. Do I have to create 3 different fonts just to cover that or is there some other way to queue dmd text with intensity?

thanks,
mark

 

[TerryRed]

You can change the DMD's "base" colour (the background), and the matrix colour (the actual fonts).

You can change these on the fly as you wish. Needs to be done for each DMD (HUD, Translite, etc).

I found I prefer having the base set to black as it allows the actual text / score to look much nicer. The matrix colour can be set to a brighter RGB value if you go past a level of 256.

You can see how I did it on MOTU CE here:

 

[madmrmax]

Thanks Terry! I was hoping for individual text intensity. I have a 5x7, 5x5, 6x14, and 16x16 fonts which render bright and less bright, but the actual Matrix color stays the same.

For example:

 

[GeorgeH]

Thanks Terry! I was hoping for individual text intensity. I have a 5x7, 5x5, 6x14, and 16x16 fonts which render bright and less bright, but the actual Matrix color stays the same.

For example:

View attachment 46097

I am not aware of a way to do that. The only thing that Rav gave us is item 3 of the message below. Of course, the other means of adding color is in the zip file companion to the table (which it looks like you have figure out).

BAM - BAM: Milestone Releases with Ravarcade's Instructions

BAM Update v289 https://www.ravarcade.pl/files/BAM_v1.5-289.zip https://www.ravarcade.pl/files/bam-setup.exe https://www.ravarcade.pl/files/BAM-OpenVR.zip - Bug fixes: lighting error in VR, New Renderer on objects in mini-playfield - Added iCom & PuP Plugins, see TerryRed guide...

pinballnirvana.com

 

[GeorgeH]

There is something else that I am not sure I showed you. You can add color to items on DMDs that have text only. You can't really define the color the text selects but it will use one of the colors in the companion zip file. You can change the background like the following:



This code produced the display:

DispDMD1.QueueText "[edge3]" & background1 & "[f6][yc]GAME OVER", deScrollOut, 2000, FALSE

I added the "background1" variable so the cabinet guys can turn it off because DMDExt won't pass color.

This is the code that defines background1:

Dim background1, background2, ColorDMDStatus

If ColorDMDStatus = 1 then
background1 = "[box1,1,1,126,30]"
background2 = "[box3,1,1,126,30]"
else
background1 = " "
background2 = " "
End If

This code is as old as FP but no one uses it other than LtJazz and myself. Do a search in the manual for [box#,#,#,#,#]. The first "1" after "box" refers to the color in the 464.bmp file (pasted below) when you don't count the first black color. The rest of the numbers selects entire DMD although you can select parts of it if desired (though I have never done it).



There is no way to control the color of the text that I know of. The font chose the white color with the black border on its own. "edge3" uses the 3rd color around the border which you can designate 1 to 4. The 3rd color spot is not used anywhere else so I like to use it on the border.

LtJazz has done more with this stuff than I have. You might want to look at "CiRQuS VoLTaiRe":

Bally - SS - Recreation - BAM - FizX - FP - CiRQuS VoLTaiRe (Bally, 1997)

IPD No. 4059 Powered by BAM (by Ravarcade), FizX (by JLou5641) & EasyMatrix BAM and the 4GB patch for both FP and BAM are required (read further installation prerequisites) CiRQuS VoLTaiRe v3 for FP is not a direct evolution of CV v2 I published...

pinballnirvana.com

If you guys want DMDExt to pass color, I suggest you log onto this site and post a comment that you would like this change to happen. The site requires a free id and password:

Feature Request - 5 Color DMDs on Future Pinball · Issue #520 · freezy/dmd-extensions

I would like to have this program pass the color information to the DMD that I create on my table modifications. I have created color DMDs on these tables and I will be adding more: Medieval Madnes...

github.com

 

[madmrmax]

Thanks for the info George! Yup I looked into both BAM functions as well as doing something like what you did for MM. It looks like none of that would help me in this case, so I'll just do a set of second fonts for each.